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New loafing spot
By JON WILSON, Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG -- The boomlet continues along one of the city's major streets. Panera Bread bakery and cafe, a national franchise specializing in sandwiches, soups and gourmet coffee, opens Tuesday at 1908 Fourth St. N, near the Outback Steakhouse that recently landed in the same block. Both are in the old Bradford Coach House, which has been renovated. At 4,500 square feet, Panera will accommodate up to 150 customers in its dining area, community room and outdoor courtyard. Hours will be 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Its addition is helping to create a strong enough pulse that neighborhood activists are pushing for a traffic signal and marked crosswalk to hook pedestrians to the thoroughfare's east side. There, the city is renovating Sunken Gardens, where the Hands On Museum will set up shop. A Carrabba's Italian Grill remains in the plans. Ten blocks south, Tijuana Flats, a Tex-Mex restaurant, is attracting steady business after opening this month. Next door, a Starbucks coffee is under construction. All the spots are among the more visible enterprises contributing to the rejuvenation of Fourth Street between 22nd and Ninth avenues N. Commercial Realtor Walt Smyth suggested that that section probably qualified fairly recently as the least attractive of several Fourth Street commercial areas. "That is changing," Smyth said. "One way to tell what a neighborhood is like is to count pay phones on the outside of convenience stores. Watson's had a bunch of them," he said, referring to a longtime neighborhood store on Ninth Avenue N that gave way last year to a new CVS drugstore. Smyth said Fourth Street N commercial property sold for $10 a square foot not too many years ago. But he hesitated about quoting a current price. "I'd be hard pressed," he said. "Things are changing so fast." Felix Fudge, who owns the building Tijuana Flats occupies and has helped broker other deals along Fourth Street, credits steadily improving residential neighborhoods, such as Crescent Lake and the Old Northeast, with helping to fuel the business strip's comeback. He put the lively business dynamic in sporting terms: "It's like a football team that gets a lot of good players, like free agents. The next ones are easier to get because they want to be on a good team," Fudge said. He guesses $20 a square foot might be a current price, noting the number is affected by building codes and construction costs. Panera expects to provide a relaxing spot along the busy street, offering a "living room" area with couches and soft chairs. Students and bookworms of all stripes will be welcome to work on their projects while snacking and sipping, said Panera marketing coordinator Linda Sway. Clifford Holensworth, president of the Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association, said to count him among those welcoming the mellow ambience. "I can see myself in a corner with a laptop on a Saturday morning," he said. Panera's community room will be open for groups at no charge, as long as members buy food and drink, Sway said. The bakery-cafe has more than 400 franchises in 30 states. This one is Panera's first in St. Petersburg, where the bread specialists plan to introduce to the Tampa Bay area what they call "artisan bread." Bakers hand-shape loaves and bake them on a stone hearth, where heat from the stone works on the dough for a long time without burning it. Steam also is used. The idea is to produce a shiny, crispy crust with a moist inside. The restaurant will feature its usual array of meat or vegetable sandwiches, bagels, soups, salads, pastries and specials, including the "you-pick-two" option among sandwich, salad and soup.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks Letters |
